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The Royal Philharmonic Society has announced the nominees for this year’s RPS Music Awards. The 13 categories recognise the outstanding achievements made by artists and organisations in 2014. RPS chairman John Gilhooly said of the range of nominations: ‘These shortlists show the wonderful diversity of musical activity nationwide and a common purpose that drives the very finest work. This is an outstanding line-up of forward-looking, clear-sighted musicians and organisations that ceaselessly strive for excellence and have a deeply ingrained desire to communicate to as many people as possible.’

Gillian Moore, the Southbank Centre’s head of classical music, has been promoted to the new position of director of music with a brief to explore new projects. ‘I am delighted to announce Gillian’s newly created role which reflects her huge contribution working closely with me and the rest of the team on the development of the festival programme over the last few years,’ said Jude Kelly, the SBC’s artistic director.

Peter Katin, who died on 19 March at age 84, belonged to a generation of virtuoso pianists who tackled concertos as well as the sotto voce salon intimacy of romantic keyboard works. Unlike American contemporaries such as Gary Graffman, Eugene Istomin, and Leon Fleischer, Katin’s early education was a much-interrupted, scattershot affair. This was due to the Blitz as well as inborn distrust in relying on full-time mentors to resolve musical problems.

Four out of five visitors to London come for the culture, said London mayor Boris Johnson, but more needs to be done to realise the city’s cultural potential. A new report, The Value of Cultural Tourism to London, produced by the Greater London Assembly, has shown that in 2013 cultural tourists spent £7.3bn in London, generating £3.2bn for the economy and supporting 80,000 jobs.

The British Council has announced Scene Change, the latest part of its four year Transform programme, building artistic and cultural partnerships between the UK and Brazil. Scene Change will run until September 2016 and focuses on theatre and opera production, with exchanges of students, project managers and education practitioners between the UK and Brazil.

The treasury has released its response to the consultation on tax relief for orchestras, significantly broadening its definition of what constitutes an orchestra. 'To ensure that the full range of orchestras can benefit from tax relief, the government has changed the definition so that the majority of performances must have at least 12 players from a minimum of one of the string, woodwind, percussion and brass sections,' reads the response document.

The impact of an 11.2% cut in the budget of Arts Council Northern Ireland (ACNI) has been revealed, with the Ulster Orchestra and Belfast’s Grand Opera House both seeing £100,000 reductions year-on-year. NI Opera is one of few organisations to see an increase, its grant rising by £40,000 to £561,569.

The London Symphony Orchestra has launched a new composer residency to celebrate the legacy of Kenyan-born poet, novelist, philosopher of mathematics and British civil servant Khadambi Asalache. The two-year residency will be held by Cevanne Horrocks-Hopayian, current LSO Soundhub associate, and based at Asalache’s former residence, the National Trust’s 575 Wandsworth Road in London.

Rhinegold Publishing has launched Rhinegold TV, which will host from Rhinegold’s own events including the Rhinegold LIVE concert series and Music Education Expo, as well as content from partner producers, at www.rhinegold.co.uk/tv/.

The RSNO has earmarked its next two seasons to celebrate its 125th anniversary, with appearances from all of the conductors who form its core artistic team, lead by music director Peter Oundjian, and including Neeme Järvi, Walter Weller, Alexander Lazarev, Thomas Søndergård, Jean-Claude Picard and former music director Stéphane Denève.

Julian Lloyd Webber has been appointed principal of Birmingham Conservatoire. He will take over from David Saint, who retires in April, and will lead the organisation through the construction of a £46m new building at Birmingham City University’s new campus on Birmingham’s Eastside. The conservatoire is also planning to merge with Birmingham School of Acting in 2017.

The Norfolk and Norwich Festival’s grant from Norfolk County Council will be reduced by 90% for 2015/16, it has been confirmed, from £83,400 in the current year to £8,442 in the next. ‘We are planning for 2016, and beyond, with an ongoing commitment to providing artistic excellence and entertainment across the festival programme,’ said the festival.

Richard Morris, the consultant and chairman of the Yehudi Menuhin School, has been honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Music Teacher Awards for Excellence. Morris was presented with the award on Thursday evening during Rhinegold Publishing’s Music Education Expo.

Mark Wilkinson, president of Deutsche Grammophon, is to move within Universal Music Group to become vice president of international strategy and artist development. Dickon Stainer and Frank Briegmann will work to find a new president 'who knows and understands the unique culture of this most legendary of labels,' said a statement.

A new fund combining public and private investment has been launched to promote the wider impact art has on society. The £7m Arts Impact Fund will lend money at interest rates of between 4% and 7% to arts organisations as a new alternative to commercial loans and grant funding in which risks are shared on specific projects.

The BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra has announced that Thomas Dausgaard is to take over the role of chief conductor from Donald Runnicles in September 2016. Runnicles will bookend the 2015/16 season, which sees the BBC SSO celebrate its 80th birthday, with performances of Mahler’s first and last symphonies and will continue to work with the orchestra as conductor emeritus.

Thai-Chinese property developer and multinational investment firm the Reignwood Group has entered a major sponsorship deal with the LSO, particularly tied to the orchestra's LSO Play digital education platform.

A censorship row is brewing in New York after the New York Youth Symphony announced it would not be performing a piece commissioned through its own young composer competition, after being alerted to the work’s quotation of a Nazi anthem. The work’s composer, 21-year-old Jonas Tarm, has expressed his disappointment at the decision.

Simon Rattle will be music director of the London Symphony Orchestra from September 2017. ‘I’m leaving a world class orchestra and coming to a very different world class orchestra,’ said Rattle. ‘This is my last job.’

Clarinettist John Cushing, who retired after a 35-year stint as principal clarinet of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra last year, has been awarded the 2014 RPS/ABO Salomon Prize. The prize celebrates the outstanding contribution of British orchestral players to the UK’s musical life.

The BBC Philharmonic has announced that 26-year-old Mark Simpson will be its new composer in association, with a term beginning in September 2015 and ending in 2019. Simpson first came to national attention in 2006 when he won both the BBC Young Composer competition and, as a clarinettist, the BBC Young Musician of the Year.

British composer Christian Mason is one of three winners of the €35,000 (£25,600) composers’ prize of the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation, announced today. The other two winners are Berlin-based American Mark Barden and German Birke Bertelsmeier.

Derby-based Sinfonia Viva has been awarded a £179,585 grant from Arts Council England towards the £211,000 cost of buying an inflatable stage and auditorium to seat up to 250 people. The stage and auditorium are ‘inflatable, highly portable and can be erected in a short space of time by just two or three people’.

The BBC Cardiff Singer of the World competition has announced the 20-strong list of singers who will comepete for the title at this year’s event, which will be held from 14 to 21 June. They stretch from the home-grown, in Welsh soprano Céline Forrest, to the far flung, with entrants from Mongolia, South Korea and South Africa.

The Philharmonia Orchestra has signed a five-year, £500,000 sponsorship deal with Chinese alcoholic beverage producer Wuliangye, which specialises in producing Baijiu, a high-strength, grain-based spirit. Wuliangye's chairman said of the deal: 'We hope the sponsorship will inspire people to enjoy the harmonious balance of drinking fabulous alcohol while listening to world-class classical music.'

Philip Pickett, the recorder player and early music ensemble leader, has been jailed for 11 years in relation to historic sex offences which occurred in the 1970s and 80s during his time as a freelance teacher at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama. The verdict was reached for two rapes and two indecent assaults on two schoolgirls and one student between 1979 and 1983, perpetrated in sound-proofed practice rooms.

The Barbican Centre is to lead a feasibility study into developing a ‘world class concert hall for London’ as part of chancellor George Osborne and London mayor Boris Johnson’s ‘long term economic plan for London’. The aim of a new hall would be ‘to help attract the world’s best musicians and orchestras to the capital and protect London’s status as the home of classical music’.

Ginny Cooper has joined Proper Note Distribution as classical label manager, moving from her previous role as UK sales and marketing manager at New Arts International (NAI). She will take with her several labels including Gala, MDG and Australian Eloquence.

As the new financial year approaches, several local authorities have revealed plans which involve significant reductions in spending on music provision. These include councils in Bromley and Wiltshire.

Sales of classical recordings fell 5% by volume last year and by just under 1% in value terms, according to detailed figures released by industry body the BPI. Classical did not reflect the doubling of overall music streaming in 2014, but 125 classical tracks were streamed more than 100,000 times.

A one-year commission lead by the University of Warwick and chaired by Vikki Heywood CBE has just released its report, titled Enriching Britain: Culture, Creativity and Growth. The commission included Arts Council England Sir Peter Bazalgette and Classic FM managing director Darren Henley, and other high-profile figures from across the arts industry.

John McCabe the man will be missed as much as John McCabe the musician. No ivory tower on earth could have enticed him inside, as fellow performers, students (for example, from his time as principal of the London College of Music) and those of us in the media can readily testify. His generosity of spirit is exemplified in the sheer breadth of his output and the range of styles he embraced.

Arts Council England announced this morning that English National Opera 'will not be admitted into its National portfolio of organisations for 2015-18' but instead placed 'under special funding arrangements' along with the Firstsite Gallery in Colchester. This comes after a period of some instability at ENO, with both its chairman and executive director departing the organisation since the start of the new year.

The Wigmore Hall launched its 2015/16 season on Tuesday with particular emphasis on widening access. A total of 460 concerts are matched with the same number of learning events, aiming to engage young musicians, schools, families and the community beyond the hall's core demographic.

Composer Edward Nesbit has won Britten Sinfonia’s Opus 2015 competition, open to composers without attachment to a publisher. The Britten Sinfonia’s chief executive, David Butcher, has suggested that there are not enough opportunities to hear the work of such composers.

Alan Gilbert is to leave the New York Philharmonic in 2017, after eight seasons as music director of the orchestra. The timing is in part dictated by the conductor’s desire for a successor to be in place to oversee a major renovation of the orchestra’s Avery Fisher Hall from 2019, said a statement released by the orchestra.

Music industry congress Classical:NEXT is to introduce an innovation award at the four-day event’s finale in Rotterdam on 23 May. Classical:NEXT director Jennifer Dautermann insisted the award complements other industry prizes and aims to raise awareness about innovative activities going on all over the world.

Tales of magic, morals, bears and ballerinas are some of the more theatrical elements in the 2015 Edinburgh International Festival classical music programme, launched today by incoming director Fergus Linehan.

The prospects of London getting both a world-class concert hall and Sir Simon Rattle as principal conductor of the London Symphony Orchestra look increasingly remote. While Rattle could conceivably sign with the LSO before his Berlin contract expires, his desire for a new hall seems unlikely to be fulfilled.

Applications are now open for the Rhinegold Charity Fund, which will offer one music charity up to £10,000 of advertising coverage across Rhinegold Publishing’s portfolio of publications, websites and services, as well as account management support from Rhinegold on certain aspects of marketing and design. The deadline for applications for 2015/16 is 13 February.

English National Opera has confirmed the departure of executive director Henriette Götz a week after the chairman of ENO’s board, Martyn Rose, also said he was to leave. Reports suggest that both the board and senior executive have been seriously fractured at a time when the company is attempting to introduce a new business model, following a seismic drop in its funding from Arts Council England.

At a ceremony held at the annual Association of British Orchestras conference, Michael Eakin, chief executive of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, was named concert hall manager of the year; Aurora Orchestra chief executive John Harte orchestra manager of the year; and Jasper Parrott artist manager of the year.

The Department for Education has published details of the subject content for GCSEs, AS Levels and A Levels in music to be taught from autumn 2016, appearing to yield to campaigning during a period of consultation. It is anticipated that exam boards will soon publish their own specifications, based on these guidelines.

The outgoing chairman of English National Opera, Martyn Rose, has called ENO’s direction under artistic director John Berry ‘wholly unsustainable’ in a letter sent to Sir Vernon Ellis, ENO’s president. ENO has denied several points in the letter and denied accounts that Berry and executive director Henriette Götz are not talking.

The chancellor George Osborne has announced details on tax relief for British orchestras to match the existing scheme for theatres Though mentioned in the Autumn Statement as a option being considered, it is only now that details have been confirmed. It is not due to come into force until April 2016, however.

The Three Choirs Foundation was officially launched last night at an event at the House of Lords hosted by Lord Faulkner of Worcester. The speakers were Dame Felicity Lott, Sarah Connolly and Sir Michael Perry (chairman of the foundation), while Adrian Partington (director of music at Gloucester Cathedral) read a message from Edward Gardner, who was in rehearsal at ENO. The men of Gloucester Cathedral Choir sung plainchant and Byrd's Vigilate.

The Southbank Centre and its four resident ensembles, the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia Orchestra, London Sinfonietta and Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment, have announced their 2015/16 seasons. With the Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall and other spaces in the Southbank’s Festival Wing becoming unavailable for up to two years from September for a £24m repair and maintenance project, many events will take place at St John’s, Smith Square.

The chairman of English National Opera, Martyn Rose, will step down from his position on 15 February, reportedly because he believes that a full-time commitment is required to guide the organisation through its £5m drop in Arts Council England funding.

At his death, aged 87, Ward Swingle deserves to be remembered for far more than the scat singing of JS Bach which for many remains the trademark of his Swingle Singers. When in 1973 he formed an English ensemble to succeed the French original, Swingle expanded its repertoire dramatically, not least in the area of contemporary classical music.

Recorded music sales in Germany rose 1.8% to €1.48bn (£1.13bn) in 2014, largely due to a 12% increase in digital and with most of the increase coming from streaming, according to figures released by industry body the BVMI.

Schott Music has announced the death of Judith Webb, managing director of its London office. Webb had worked at the publisher for 35 years, a contribution hailed by Schott creative director Sam Rigby as 'immense'.

Naxos is launching what it claims is the first high-definition, lossless classical streaming service to be offered worldwide, underlining the growth in real-time digital music listening as downloads decline. ClassicsOnlineHD will also offer recording producers a much better revenue model than the 'pay per play' offer from streaming services such as Spotify which has brought complaints from many artists and labels.

At around 10.30pm on 8 January, more than 150 musicians gathered in London’s Trafalgar Square where they held a minute’s silence and gave a performance of Barber’s Adagio for Strings as part of worldwide tributes after the shooting of 12 people at the Paris office of the satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo.

The Labour party is suffering a sustained backlash from the arts community after its official Twitter account denied Conservative claims that it would reverse cuts to Arts Council England’s budget. In fact, Labour says, it would continue with the planned £83m reduction in grant-in-aid to ACE from the 2015/16 financial year.

Classical Music is an official media partner for the Incorporated Society of Musicians’ Make Music Work, a day-long event for emerging composers and performers to be held at Milton Court, London on 31 March. The event aims to demystify the classical music industry for composers and performers hoping to establish successful and sustainable careers.

Musical beneficiaries of the 2015 New Year Honours list offered a predictable range of soundbites: ‘a complete surprise’ (conductor and founder of Music for Autism, John Lubbock OBE), ‘baffled and bewildered’ (jazz trumpeter Guy Barker MBE), ‘very honoured’ (Southbank Centre supremo Jude Kelly at the CBE added to her OBE) and ‘very touching’ (timpanist Alan Fearon MBE, recognised for 45 years’ service with the Northern Sinfonia, including the role of chorus master for the Northern Sinfonia Chorus).

The death of Michael Kennedy at the age of 88 removes perhaps the key remaining source of reminiscence of Ralph Vaughan Williams. Kennedy’s passion for British music is also reflected in studies of Britten, Elgar and Walton.

A year of management change in the UK’s classical music industry has been bookended by the awarding of CBEs to Roger Wright and outgoing Arts Council England chief executive Alan Davey. Jude Kelly, artistic director of the Southbank Centre, has also been made CBE, as has opera director Richard Jones.

Dame Fanny Waterman has announced she will retire as chairman and artistic director of the Leeds Piano Competition after the 2015 event, when she will be 95. She has also said that there has been a decline in the number of talented British pianists of the quality to compete at the event.

Spitalfields Music chief executive Abigail Pogson is to become managing director of Sage Gateshead in May, taking over from Anthony Sargent. 'It was always going to be something pretty special to tempt me away from East London and Sage Gateshead is very special indeed.'

Geoffrey Baker, author of El Sistema: Orchestrating Venezuela’s Youth, has responded to allegations by author Tricia Tunstall that the work has ‘the feel of a vendetta’ by calling Tunstall ‘a professional Sistema advocate’.

In 2011, Cambridge University Library set out to digitise its entire collection of three million manuscripts of printed words and music. To date, 25,000 literary documents have been committed to the screen, but because of the more public nature of the work itself, the music collection was always going to make a bigger impact and it commanded a celebratory launch in the library of Pembroke College Cambridge in early December.

Elim Chan last night won first prize in the 2014 Donatella Flick LSO Conducting Competition, the first woman to do so in the event’s 24 year history. As a result of her victory, the London Symphony Orchestra also gets its first ever female assistant conductor.

Sir Peter Bazalgette has outlined a new approach to diversity which will see arts organisations required ‘to shape their artistic programme to better reflect the communities they serve’ or risk sanctions in future funding settlements.

Trinity Laban Conservatoire of Music and Dance has announced an increase of £100,000 in scholarships available to musicians studying on its undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. 'We decided to prioritise investment in our scholarship provision by releasing funds from endowments,' said a Trinity spokesperson. 'This is a permanent investment.'

The British Composer Awards were announced last night in a ceremony at Goldsmiths' Hall. Sir Harrison Birtwistle won his sixth career award for Songs from the same Earth in the Vocal category, while Kerry Andrew was the star of the night with two awards, for Woodwose: A Community Chamber Opera in the Community or Educational Project category and Dart's Love in the Stage Works category.

The site of the most successful Olympic Games in living memory is to be turned into a cultural centre, with a new Sadler’s Wells theatre and research base included. Chancellor George Osborne has promised £141m to create a cultural quarter in the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park at Stratford, east London as part of the government’s National Infrastructure Plan.

Netherlands-based T2 Entertainment group has become the latest in a string of classical recording distributors to suffer financial collapse. The company, headed by Arjan Terpstra, was launched only in 2009 to distribute pop, jazz, world music and classical CDs and DVDs, computer games and gadgets, and provide logistics (principally warehousing) in the Benelux countries.

Dartington International Summer School has announced the full programme of events and classes for its 2015 season, which runs from 1 to 29 August. It will be the first edition of the annual summer school to be overseen by new artistic director Joanna MacGregor.

Belfast City Council has offered a conditional £100,000 to the troubled Ulster Orchestra, which remains some distance from securing the £500,000 rescue package which it says will prevent its closure next year. At the same time, arts funding across Northern Ireland is under threat of significant cuts.

The mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has launched the ‘London Music Pledge’, which sets out several actions which the Greater London Authority will take to improve music education in the capital. At the same time it presents five sets of ten suggested pledges to be undertaken by headteachers, teachers, music education hubs, musicians, and parents.

The Incorporated Society of Musicians has released initial details of ‘Make Music Work’, a day-long event for composers and performers who are establishing their careers in the music industry which will be held at Milton Court, London on 31 March.

The Paul Hamlyn Foundation has announced its 2014 Awards for Artists, marking the 20th year of the awards. Five visual artists and three composers will each be given £50,000 over three years to support their work, with no 'strings attached in terms of how the money can be used,' according to the stated principles of the Awards.

For John Berry, ENO’s artistic director, it was a bitter pill to swallow when he realised he would have to abandon the L’Orfeo project. ‘We just had to be pragmatic,’ he said. ‘Sometimes you just have to take really hard decisions’. In April he had announced programme for 2015 that was bold and exciting, and flew in the face of austerity, with a fund-raising programme that signalled a reduced reliance on subsidy.

The Association of British Orchestras has produced a video to promote the work of the UK’s orchestras across the arts and entertainment industries. It accompanies a new report which advocates for UK orchestras' sustained public funding as a key part of the nation's large creative economy.

English National Opera's co-production with the Bristol Old Vic of Monteverdi's Orfeo has been cancelled, with ENO artistic director John Berry blaming 'the challenging funding situation from April 2015'. The decision to withdraw from the production was made in the interests of achieving a balanced budget for the 2015/16 financial year, he said in a statement.

Dickon Stainer has been appointed president and chief executive of global classics at Universal Music Group, with overall responsibility for all of UMG’s classical output including Deutsche Grammophon, Decca, and Sinfini Music.

British soprano Mary Bevan, currently singing Susanna in ENO's Marriage of Figaro, interviewed for Opera Now magazine: 'Just because my voice isn’t massive it doesn’t mean I can’t do opera. In fact it did me a favour...'

The City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra is to perform in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates for the first time next month, with concerts on 15 and 16 December. Chief executive Stephen Maddock said the orchestra was ‘thrilled’ with the engagements, and hoped that more would follow.

Parliament’s Culture, Media and Sport Committee has published a report which states that ACE must fund more work outside London if it is to meet its declared aims. It also criticises ministers for failing to advocate for cultural spending by local governments. ACE broadly welcomed the findings.

Comedian Jack Dee will narrate Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf at the Mozart Symphony Orchestra’s two festive concerts at Cadogan Hall, London on 22 December. The concert will also include a screening of The Snowman, with chorister Jack Topping singing Walking in the Air.

Panel members at a discussion hosted by online auctioneer amati.com have called for the tax relief available on donations of items of national cultural importance to be extended to musical instruments. Current rules could apply to musical instruments intended as objects for display in museums, but do not appear to provide for the donation of instruments for practical use.

Several Scottish music organisations have benefited from Creative Scotland’s latest funding announcement after the arts quango found an additional £10m to boost its three-year ‘Regular Funding’ pot to £100m.

The worlds of science and art collided on 24 October as musicologists, scientists, medical professionals and musicians gathered to examine how performing and listening to music affects brain development, at a special conference entitled ‘Mozart and the Power of Music: Memory, Myth & Magic’.

Controversial claims made in Paul Kildea's biography of Benjamin Britten that the composer was suffering from syphilis at the time of his death have been dismissed in a peer-reviewed article published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine. Kildea remains committed to his account as 'ultimately more plausible'.

Wimbledon International Music Festival runs 8-23 November, with the centrepiece of this year’s ‘War and Peace’-themed events being a production of Stravinsky’s The Soldier’s Tale in two performances on 9 November.

Speaking on Radio 4’s Today programme, Alan Davey, who is currently chief executive of Arts Council England and joins Radio 3 in January as Roger Wright’s successor, denied he intended dumbing Radio 3 down or making the station more like Classic FM, which continues to draw audiences of more than five million a week. Radio 3, he insisted, would continue to do what it does best which is to offer complex culture, arts and ideas within the reach of lots of people.

The Royal Northern College of Music has completed a £7.1m rebuild of the interior of its concert hall, along with extensive new backstage space for its opera theatre and new student facilities. Constructed entirely within the original 1972 building’s walls, the transformation has produced a concert hall seating over 700.

The 2014 British Composer Awards have been announced, with two nominations each for Kerry Andrew, Harrison Birtwistle and John McCabe, and nine composers shortlisted for the first time. Of this year’s 35 nominated works, 11 were written by women and 24 by men.

The UK Critics’ Circle has announced its music awards for 2014, with composer George Benjamin named outstanding musician for his well-received opera Written on Skin. Awards for ‘exceptional young talent in music’ were also made, to soprano Mary Bevan, composer Charlotte Bray and pianist Igor Levit.

A statement released by the Ulster Orchestra acknowledges the precarious situation of its finances and suggests that, if it does survive, its future will be ‘not as we have come to know it over the last 50 years’.

Alpesh Chauhan has been appointed assistant conductor of the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra, a newly created role, until July 2015. Chauhan was the CBSO’s first conducting fellow when he was appointed in December 2013.

The third biannual Amati Exhibition will be held at the Lansdowne Club, London on 26 and 27 October, including a recently-announced programme of talks and the launch of the ‘Monograph Collection’, a joint subscription publishing venture between Amati and violin dealer J&A Beare which will focus in detail on ‘masterworks of the classical school of violin making’.

The Ealing Autumn Festival runs 10-26 October, with several music events including the world premiere of Galileo!, a new opera written by the festival’s artistic director, Gillian Spragg, which opens the festival on 10 and 11 October.

Competition publishes marks and says Rogé failed to respect competition rules, divulged false information and discredited the competition. A statement says it 'will now make a legal claim for damages'.

Welsh National Opera is marking its 70th year with the world premiere of two new commissions, five new productions, two ‘new to WNO’ and a classic revival. The 2015-16 programme sees a continuation of the company’s themed season as well as its bel canto series and a Royal Opera House residency.

The board of Rome Opera House has taken the unprecedented step of sacking its entire choir and orchestra, throwing a question mark over the future activities of what was once a jewel in Italy’s cultural crown.

The City Music Foundation has announced the three soloists and three chamber ensembles which it will support through mentoring, professional development and performance opportunities as part of its 2014 classical artists programme.

Birmingham's CBSO Centre has been reopened after a £1.8m redevelopment, with improvements having been made to performance facilities, public areas and the fabric of the building itself. The building was first opened in 1998.

The Band of Her Majesty’s Royal Marines will play a newly composed soundtrack at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on 16 October to celebrate the restoration of an 87-year-old documentary, painstakingly restored by film historians to mark the centenary of the two naval battles it chronicles.

Following a protracted dispute with the skating community over plans for the £100m-plus ‘Festival Wing’ redevelopment, the Southbank Centre has agreed not to give over the QEH’s undercroft for retail development and to continue to allow the space to be used in its current form.

Flautist James Galway won the lifetime achievement award, in celebration of ‘50 years of bringing classical music to the widest possible audience’. The awards’ overall record of the year was the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra and Riccardo Chailly’s ‘monumental’ cycle of Brahms symphonies on Decca.

A member of the Three Choirs Festival Chorus who made offensive remarks related to Nazi Germany during rehearsal for an event commemorating the first world war was dismissed from the festival before the concert took place and was not involved in any altercation with visiting singers, say festival organisers, who have labelled him ‘foolish’.

Simmering differences between Franz Welser-Möst and Dominique Meyer over the artistic direction of the Vienna State Opera led last week to what those who know the scene say was inevitable ‒ the resignation of Welser-Möst as musical director.

New NGAs for 2014-16 will be German baritone Benjamin Appl, British French horn player Alec Frank-Gemmill, Armenian cellist Narek Hakhnazaryan, Russian pianist Pavel Kolesnikov, American-Belgian violinist Esther Yoo, and German chamber group Armida Quartet.

Conductor Han-Na Chang has resigned from her position as music director of the Qatar Philharmonic Orchestra the day after the orchestra’s Proms debut, citing ‘persistent administrative difficulties and irreconcilable artistic differences with the management’.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra has launched RSNO Alchemy, a brand new ensemble focused on contemporary music, exploring unconventional performance methods, improvisation and cross-genre collaborations. Linked to the orchestra's professional development programme, the ensemble is directed by Peter Wiegold.

Composer Julian Anderson has joined Schott Music from Faber Music, the first signing under Schott’s new London creative director Sam Rigby. ‘The catalogue contains many composers whose music I love such as Zimmermann, Ligeti and Henze and I admire the firm’s strong commitment to the promotion of contemporary music on an international scale,' said Anderson.

Nominations for orchestra manager, concert hall manager, and artist manager of the year close on 5 December. The awards will be made at the Association of British Orchestras Conference 2015, held at Sage Gatehead in January 2015.

Registration has opened for the 2015 Music Education Expo, which will be held at the Barbican Exhibition Halls on 12 and 13 March 2015. Registration allows free entry to the event, which is expected to attract more than 2,000 music education professionals.

Radio 3 and the BBC Singers have launched a national Christmas carol composition competition, with shortlisted entries to be performed live on Radio 3 in the run up to Christmas and the winning carol to be played on Christmas Day. Compositions will set a specially commissioned poem by author Susan Hill.

Help Musicians UK has published the results of its health and wellbeing survey: 66% of respondents had suffered performance anxiety, 60% 'depression or other psychological issues', and 73% 'money problems'.

Sound and Music's survey suggests that composers are producing more for less money, while also having to find other means of generating a significant income. The findings present the sector with 'some hard questions to ask ourselves', says chief exec Susanna Eastburn

Contemporary classical music record label NMC has secured a new tranche of trust funding which will go some way towards covering the termination of its Holst Foundation grant in 2015. With Gustav Holst’s music falling out of copyright ten years ago, the royalty funded foundation bearing his name has been gradually reducing its spending.

The NLGN (New Local Government Network) has produced a report in response to the fact that local authority funding for arts and culture has fallen by 19% in the last three years. The report, entitled On with the show: supporting local arts and culture, warns that local authorities must now find alternative ways of sustaining local culture.

As the arts and culture face at least another three years of financial uncertainty, Nesta, the lottery-funded innovation foundation, has come up with new funding models to help bring new money to the sector.

Classical:NEXT will move to Rotterdam for its fourth outing on 20-23 May next year, hoping that this will be a long-term home for the classical music congress. Event organiser Piranha Arts has partnered with the De Doelen concert hall to host the market, seminars, concerts, audiovisual screenings and presentations.

'On 18 September the people of Scotland will decide whether Scotland should be an independent country. That decision is, simply, a choice between two futures. We can be governed from Westminster, often by governments we didn’t vote for and who don’t put Scottish interests first. Or we can take responsibility for our own future; ensuring decisions about Scotland are made by those who care most about Scotland ‒ the people who live and work here.'

Seán Doherty has won the composition competition run by CM sister magazine Choir & Organ with his carol A Nywe Werk. Doherty declared himself ‘delighted’ to have won: ‘The opportunity to enter, with these jury members, was too good to miss.’

The Department for Education has announced that central funding for the network of 123 music education hubs in England will be more than £75m in 2015/16, described as ‘an £18m funding boost’ by education minister Nick Gibb. Darren Henley, whose review of England’s music education led to the National Plan for Music Education, said the announcement was ‘great news’.

Judith Weir has been confirmed as the next Master of the Queen’s Music, a fixed term, 10-year role which she takes up today from Sir Peter Maxwell Davies. ‘I hope to encourage everyone in the UK who sings, plays or writes music, and to hear as many of them as possible in action over the next 10 years,’ she said.

Rod Franks, third trumpet of the London Symphony Orchestra and principal for more than two decades, died in a car crash on the A1 in Nottinghamshire on the evening of 20 July. 'Rod will be missed for his ever-welcoming friendliness and brilliant playing' said the orchestra.

Inspired by her favourite piece, one for which Nigel Kennedy has become world-famous, artist Dora Holzhandler has painted Kennedy ‘at work in all four seasons’. The portraits will be on show at the Goldmark Gallery in Uppingham, Rutland, from 13 September to 5 October.

American conductor Lorin Maazel has died at the age of 84 from ‘complications following pneumonia’, said a statement released on 13 July by the Castleton Festival, the festival he founded in 2009 with his wife Dietlinde.

Carpenter and members of his Salomé Chamber Orchestra, including his violinist siblings, Sean Avraham and Lauren Sarah, appeared on the podium at London’s Central Synagogue carrying tablet computers instead of sheet music in the first of a new classical series at the venue.

Violinist Nicola Benedetti has been awarded Making Music’s Sir Charles Groves Prize, made annually to an individual or organisation for making an outstanding contribution to the musical life of the UK.

Recorder player Mirian Nerval is an inaugural artist of the City Music Foundation and will be offering the musical element of this narrated concert which will trace the history of The Old Bailey and its position in British Justice. The main narrator will be the actual Recorder of London, Brain Barker QC, and Simon Callow will put in a guest appearance.

Stringent new rules in the USA outlawing the selling, transporting and ‘owning with intent to sell’ of ivory may be good news for elephants, but they have serious implications for musicians. Manufacturers of period instruments on both sides of the Atlantic are extremely concerned.

Several music organisations are among 99 of Arts Council England’s National Portfolio Organisations whose entire 2015-18 funding award will originate from the National Lottery. The funding arrangements represent ACE’s latest interpretation of the principle of additionality.

Classical music institutions have appeared to emerge unscathed in today’s funding announcement by Arts Council England. In most cases, changes to ACE grants will be felt evenly, with a major exception in ENO, which is willingly submitting to a major overhaul in its business model and a real-terms grant cut of one-third.

English National Opera is the single biggest victim of cuts in Arts Council England’s funding arrangements for 2015-18. The company will suffer a real-terms cut of around one-third, but had already acknowledged the need to radically alter its business model.

Arts Council England will announce its National Portfolio Organisations for 2015-18 on 1 July, with National Lottery funding being used for the first time to bolster ACE’s grant-in-aid funding of portfolio institutions.

The $45m (£27m) anticipated minimum price for the 1719 ‘Macdonald’ Stradivarius viola has not been met, auctioneer Sotheby’s has confirmed. ‘We do anticipate that the “Macdonald” will be pursued and that further offers closer to $45 million will be made.’

Michael Elliott, currently chief executive of the Royal Scottish National Orchestra, has been appointed chief executive of ABRSM. He will take over the role from the retiring Leslie East in January 2015.

Tom Morris, director of the Bristol Proms, has spoken of audiences ‘self-regulating’, after a ‘very over-excited’ academic was physically ejected during a performance at last year’s inaugural festival. The academic had contributed a visual display to a Nicola Benedetti concert the evening before and will again be contributing visuals to an event at this year's festival.

Multi-Story’s summer season launches on 20 June, with the premiere of Kate Whitley’s Alive and Sibelius’ fifth symphony being the first of five concerts performed in a south-east London car park from June to August.

The Singapore International Violin Competition will be held at the Yong Siew Toh Conservatory of Music at the National University of Singapore. It has been launched with the aim of ‘promoting the rise of Singapore as a culturally vibrant city’, backed by a total prize fund of $118,000 (£69,500) with a $50,000 (£29,450) first prize.

Music rights collector PPL marked its 80th anniversary by reporting licensing income of £176.9m, up 4%, for the previous 12 month. Growth came principally from broadcasting and online – particularly commercial television – and public performance, up by 5% and 7% respectively.

The BBC has announced a major music education initiative which will give every primary school in the country an opportunity to participate. The project, Ten Pieces, ‘aims to inspire a generation of children to get creative with classical music’.

Pianist András Schiff received a knighthood, and soprano Susan Bullock and ENO artistic director John Berry received CBEs. Boosey & Hawkes managing director Janis Susskind received an OBE, describing the honour as ‘a bolt from the blue’.

The music world paid tribute to Sir John Tavener on 11 June with a service of thanksgiving at Westminster Abbey, attended by The Prince of Wales. Sir John died on 12 November last year, aged 69. Leading a service which mirrored the composer’s religious and personal leanings by including a gospel reading spoken and chanted in Greek, the Dean of Westminster, John Hall, was joined by Archbishop Gregorios of Thyateira and Great Britain.

Seventeen universities, colleges and conservatories share the top ten spots for music in the higher education guides published by three separate leading sources. The results show sharp degrees of variance in the assessments of the teaching institutions with each guide placing a different university at the top of its rankings.

The new culture secretary, Sajid Javid, and his shadow counterpart, Harriet Harman, have both made powerful speeches addressing young people and approaches to class difference in the arts, speaking within three weeks of the Arts Council announcing its spending plans for 2015-18.

The non-attendance of José Antonio Abreu, the founder of Venezuela’s El Sistema, at a much-vaunted press conference at the Southbank Centre, has left journalists puzzled. Abreu, a somewhat reclusive figure who is not in good health, gives few interviews and his appearance was much anticipated. The press conference was part of a weekend of activities under the 'Sounds Venezuela: Nucleo' umbrella.

Lancashire Sinfonietta, the professional chamber orchestra which was ensemble in residence at Lancaster University, has become the latest casualty of local authority budget cuts. ‘In particular it will be a huge loss to the schools, families and children who are increasingly denied exposure to music by the erosion of government support for the arts,' said a statement.

The Metropolitan Opera faces bankruptcy ‘in two or three years’ if it fails to bring its wages bill under control, general manger Peter Gelb has warned. The stark announcement follows the threat of strike action following Gelb’s proposal to cut spending on the venue’s $200m (£119m) labour costs by 16%.

Musicians continue to come out in support of music education as the Protect Music Education campaign, led by the Incorporated Society of Musicians, attempts to rally support before a consultation deadline later this month.

The increasing popularity of live-accompaniment film screenings has been demonstrated by the addition of an extra night to the original run of three performances of Gladiator Live, accompanied by the Philharmonia Orchestra.

The London Symphony Orchestra has appointed 18-year-old Peter Moore as co-principal trombone, the orchestra’s youngest ever member. Belfast-born Moore was also the youngest ever winner of the BBC Young Musician competition.

The Southbank Centre has announced a £24m scheme to repair and maintain the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery, backed by a £16.7m grant from Arts Council England. However, the idea of a Festival Wing has not been abandoned by Southbank management.

Opera critics came under fire following reviews of Glyndebourne’s season opener of Der Rosenkavalier on 17 May. On his Slipped Disc blog, commentator Norman Lebrecht said social media had gone ‘white-hot with their fury’ following comments about Irish mezzo Tara Erraught, who played Octavian.

Pianist Martin James Bartlett is the winner of the BBC Young Musician 2014 competition. The 17-year-old from Essex won the prestigious award with a consummate performance of Rachmaninoff’s Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini.

Do not be afraid to admit that classical music is art music and that it is enjoyed by the middle classes, but do fight to keep music in school classrooms ‒ that was the challenge delivered by singer and cultural campaigner Thomas Hampson in his keynote speech at the opening of Classical:NEXT in Vienna.

Scottish Opera has announced its 2014/15 season of five main-stage operas, opening in October with Rossini’s La Cenerentola (directed by Sandrine Anglade) in a co-production with Opéra national du Rhin. A new production of James MacMillan’s Inés de Castro, which was originally commissioned by the company for its 1996 season, will see in the new year.

Sir Harrison Birtwistle has become the most honoured musician in RPS Awards history, adding a fifth with this year's win of the Chamber-Scale Composition award for The Moth Requiem (first performed by the BBC Singers at the Proms). The RPS Awards for Music, in 13 categories, were announced at a ceremony hosted by Radio 3’s Petroc Trelawny and Sara Mohr-Pietsch at the Dorchester Hotel.

Both the Hallé Orchestra and BBC Philharmonic have announced major Beethoven performances in their 2014-15 Manchester season plans. Other highlights include focuses on Nielsen, Shostakovich and British composers.

Sir John Tomlinson has been named as the latest recipient of the Royal Philharmonic Society’s Gold Medal, the society’s highest honour. It has also been announced that the bass is to take up an international chair in singing at the Royal Northern College of Music

The future of the Salzburg Festival has been called into question following claims by its president Helga Rabl-Stadler that it needs a substantial increase in state funding if it is to survive. Speaking to the Salzburger Nachrichten newspaper, Rabl-Stadler said ‘I cannot stay silent any longer … We need substantially more funding. What is at stake here is the future of the Salzburg Festival.'

Antony Hopkins CBE won fame through a programme with the simplest of titles and simplest of formats: Talking about Music. Running from the mid-1950s, not just on what are now Radio 3 and Radio 4 but dozens of stations worldwide, it relied purely and simply on Hopkins’ brilliance at writing.

The Lufthansa Festival of baroque music will run 16-24 May with a varied programme of events to celebrating the festival’s 30th birthday and the 300th anniversary of the founding of St John's, Smith Square.

Trombonist, composer and conductor Christian Lindberg will lead the Västerås Sinfonietta in its UK debut performance at Cadogan Hall on 17 May, in a concert featuring the UK premiere of Lindberg’s clarinet concerto, The Erratic Dreams of Mr Grönstedt, and Andrea Tarrodi's Lucioles.

Opera North’s 2014/15 announcement includes the news that music director Richard Farnes is to continue in the role for two years more, bringing a 12-year tenure to a finale in summer 2016 with a series of complete Ring cycle performances at ‘concert halls around the country’.

English National Opera has revealed its 2014/15 season along with a slew of collaborations and projects which suggest a company reinventing itself in the budget cut era. After financial straits which saw the company raid its contingency budget to the tune of £2.2m in 2011/12, a rosier picture was presented by artistic director John Berry this morning, with 2013/14 showing a surplus ‘due to stronger than anticipated box office sales and buoyant co-production partnerships’.

Sage Gateshead has announced two major changes to its leadership. Anthony Sargent, general director of Sage Gateshead for fifteen years and Katherine Zeserson, who has been director of learning and participation at the venue since 2002 will stand down in early 2015 after the venue’s tenth birthday in December.

Next month, the Royal Scottish National Orchestra (RSNO) will provide the most comprehensive orchestra-led music access programme to primary and secondary schools across Scotland. In terms of scale and choice, RSNO Engage for Schools is the first of its kind in the UK, as education establishments can pick and choose the level of music education provision they require from over thirty options.

The Berlin Philharmonic is launching its own recording label with the release on 23 May of a sumptuously packaged set of the Schumann symphonies conducted by the orchestra’s principal conductor, Sir Simon Rattle.

The centenary of the outbreak of the first world war is being commemorated with the matinée War Horse Prom, the Prom’s first ever collaboration with the National Theatre. The 80th birthdays of Sir Harrison Birtwistle and Sir Peter Maxwell Davies will also be marked across ten concerts.

A consultation document on local education funding shows that central government expects local government to cease funding music in English schools from 2016. There is also little certainty over levels of music education funding after the current financial year.

Channel 4 has commissioned production company Fresh One to make a three-part series in which pianist James Rhodes launches this country’s biggest ever ‘instrument amnesty’, aiming to ‘to get Britain playing again’.

JAM, the John Armitage Memorial, is running a choral course, alongside its JAM on the Marsh festival in the Romney Marsh, Kent. The festival (11-20 July), curated by Judith Bingham, brings together musicians associated with JAM with the charity’s education work in the area.

A group of people connected with the National Children’s Orchestras of Great Britain (NCO), calling themselves ‘concerned stakeholders’, have publicly aired grievances against the charity’s board of trustees, and effectively called for a coup d’etat, albeit one with the organisation’s founder at its forefront.

The Barbican has announced the appointment of Huw Humphreys as its new head of music. The appointment follows the departure of Angela Dixon who was named director of the Saffron Hall Trust Essex from March 2014.

English National Opera has appointed Henriette Götz as its new executive director, replacing Loretta Tomasi who left the company at the end of 2013. Götz will be assuming her new role in May 2014, after leaving her current post as executive director at the Antwerp-based Vlaamse Opera, where she has been since 2009.

Creative Scotland has announced a 10-year plan and revamped funding approach for Scotland's creative industries which will ‘unlock the potential’ of the country’s arts, screen and creative industries and sets out ‘clear ambitions’ for the future.

Alain Lanceron has been confirmed as president of Warner Classics and Erato following Warner Music Group's purchase of EMI and Virgin Classics' catalogues and recording contracts last year. One of his priorities, he tells CM, is signing new artists.

Choirs from Estonia, Spain, Poland, the US, Sweden, Ireland and the UK will compete in the competition, which was conceived as a 70th birthday tribute to Sir John Tavener and will now be held in his memory.

The fast-growing popularity worldwide of online streaming for music consumption is confirmed by the annual survey of international recording industry body the IFPI. Europe’s six biggest markets ‒ France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK ‒ all registered positive revenue flow in 2013.

John O'Kane is a permanent replacement for Séamus Crimmins, who retired in July 2013. He arrives from a senior management position at Ireland's Arts Council to take responsibility for the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra and RTÉ Concert Orchestra, RTÉ Philharmonic Choir and RTÉ Cor na nÓg, and ConTempo Quartet

The Royal Opera House has announced its opera and ballet programme for 2014/15 for both the main stage and the Linbury Theatre. Highlights include Turnage's Anna Nicole, Giordano’s Andrea Chenier, the Antonio Pappano Orchestral Concert and Philip Glass’ The Trial.

The Scottish Chamber Orchestra follows up its 40th anniversary year with a season of music that begins with Mahler’s fourth symphony and ends with Haydn’s Creation, including a focus on the music of Japanese composer Toshio Hosokawa.

The Royal Scottish National Orchestra’s 2014/15 season is just one of many activities in an action-packed year for the orchestra which will see it move to its new home adjacent to the Glasgow Royal Concert Hall.

The BBC’s director-general, Tony Hall, today announced a new strategy for the BBC’s arts and music programming, with a new emphasis on collaboration both within the BBC and with national institutions and artists.

Roger Wright, controller of Radio 3 and director of the BBC Proms, is to leave the BBC at the beginning of this year’s Proms season to become chief executive of Aldeburgh Music from September. The BBC said that recruitment for the posts would begin ‘in due course’.

‘After nearly 50 years as a San Diego cultural cornerstone providing world-class performances, we saw we faced an insurmountable financial hurdle going forward,’ Ian D Campbell, the opera’s general and artistic director, said in a statement.

Michael Henson has announced his resignation as president and chief executive of the Minnesota Orchestra. He will step down after seven years in the post on August 31 following a period that brought the 111-year-old orchestra to the brink of closure.

Arts Council England has welcomed a new scheme for arts and cultural organisations to claim specific tax relief on production costs, announced in Chancellor George Osborne’s budget on 19 March. The tax break will apply to both commercial and subsidised productions and will include theatre, ballet, dance and opera, musicals and other live performance.

The BBCSSO continues its exploration of cutting edge contemporary music together with performances of much-loved classics in its 2014/15 season. ‘Discovery’ is one of the main themes throughout with audiences having the opportunity to hear some less familiar works

In its most formal sense, the report is simply ACE’s response to the Commons Culture Select Committee’s call for evidence as it looks into the regional funding balance. Actually, it is a defiant policy affirmation.

The Royal Marines Corps of Drums is to launch a world record attempt to make the longest group drum roll, with preparations currently underway for six teams to undertake an ambitious 64-hour drum roll from 30 April.

Following the House of Commons’ Culture, Media and Sport Committee’s announcement on 10 January of an inquiry into the regional imbalance of funding in the UK, Arts Council England has published a formal response as well as a report entitled This England: How Arts Council England uses its investment to shape a national cultural ecology.

The British chamber orchestra Aurora has signed a three-album deal with record label Warner Classics. The first release, scheduled for autumn 2014, will be entitled Road Trip and feature music by John Adams, Aaron Copland and Charles Ives alongside folksongs arranged by Nico Muhly.

The Foundling Museum in London has opened a new temporary exhibition examining Handel’s music for royal occasions. Handel was a governor of the Foundling Hospital, which works today as the children’s charity Coram.

Classical:NEXT, the music industry expo that has its third outing on 14 to 17 May, has hurriedly expanded its exhibition area in the applied arts museum in Vienna, because demand for stands is already a third up on last year.

Free series of concerts aims to bring music to all, removing the barriers to classical music and offering a unique take on the classical recital experience. Each concert will be followed by a Q&A with the artist and a complimentary drinks reception.

London’s Wigmore Hall sold a total 200,000 tickets in 2013, marking its highest ever attendance figures, and a 60% increase from 2005 (when John Gilhooly took over the artistic director role). A statement from the hall pinpointed the increase in the number of recitals broadcast by Radio 3, the international reach of releases on the Wigmore Hall Live label and a new tv relay partnership with Sky Arts as having contributed to rising audiences.

The City of London Police has charged early music specialist Philip Pickett with 15 historic offences, relating to nine separate victims, which allegedly occurred during his tenure as a freelance teacher at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama.

Croydon-based chamber orchestra the London Mozart Players has announced details of what will become its new structure after its current managing director, Simon Funnell, leaves at the end of next month as the result of ‘a major funding problem’.

Wright: ‘We do not chase ratings, but I am delighted that the station has experienced recent growth in its distinctiveness and audience appreciation figures and remains a vital part of the UK’s cultural landscape.’

Southbank Centre management are to conduct a final search for money from the public sector in an attempt 'to keep the Festival Wing redevelopment scheme alive', after London mayor Boris Johnson put his weight behind the skaters currently using the undercroft of the Queen Elizabeth Hall.

Kallaway has announced the opening of Choir of the Year 2014. Auditions will take place around the UK from March to June in Middlesbrough, London, Bristol, Leeds, Basingstoke, Warwick, Norwich and Glasgow.

The winners have been announced for the Association of British Orchestras/Rhinegold Awards 2014, presented at LSO St Luke's on 29 January as part of the ABO annual conference. The awards were inaugurated in 2011 to honour the backstage figures of the music business.

A varied 2014/15 classical season was announced by the Southbank Centre and its resident orchestras on 23 January, with particular attention drawn to 20 new works with London, UK and world premieres among them.

Gardner is to leave after the 2014-15 season to take up the post of chief conductor at the Bergen Philharmonic Orchestra, an appointment which was announced in February 2013 ‒ although at the time it was said that he would be continuing in his role at ENO.

One of the most respected figures in classical music, Claudio Abbado found early success and remained at the top of the industry for the rest of his life, holding prestigious positions in Berlin, Vienna and London. He also did much to encourage young musicians.

Venezuelan prizewinner and product of El Sistema will take over from JoAnn Falletta in September 2014. Further details will be released in March of 'plans to introduce the El Sistema programme to Northern Ireland'.

The Culture, Media and Sport select committee of the House of Commons is to conduct an inquiry into the work of Arts Council England. The inquiry will look across the organisation’s scale, scope and remit, as well as the current weighting of its funding towards arts organisations in London.

Arts Council England is turning to the National Lottery to fill in gaps in its revenue funding after the government announced further cuts to all departments. In 2015/16 ACE’s grants to its revenue clients are to be cut by 2%.

Listings website Bachtrack.com has published an analysis of its data from the last year’s classical performances. It shows a surge in popularity for Britten, Valery Gergiev as the busiest conductor in the world, and a shocking paucity of women composers and conductors.

Baritone Sir Thomas Allen has been awarded The Queen’s Medal for Music 2013. The medal has been given since 2005 to ‘an outstanding individual or group of musicians who have had a major influence on the musical life of the nation’.

UK streaming sites broke £100m barrier for first time in 2013 and digital downloads continued to grow ‒ but downloads were marginally down in the US. Vinyl is on an undoubted upturn with highest UK unit sales since 1997.

Declan McGovern has stepped down from his role as general manager of the RTÉ National Symphony Orchestra of Ireland after just a year in post. RTE, Ireland’s national broadcasting organisation, announced his departure in a statement issued on 23 December.

The Arts Council of Northern Ireland and Derry City Council have launched a £900,000 legacy fund ‘to continue the cultural transformation of the city’ as its year as the first UK City of Culture comes to an end.

An album of music for strings by the Bulgarian-British composer Dobrinka Tabakova has been nominated for a 2014 Grammy award. String Paths, recorded on the ECM label, has been shortlisted in the Best Classical Compendium category

Scotland looks set to get its third El Sistema-style children’s orchestra project, thanks to backing from Aberdeen City Council. Big Noise Torry, based in the Torry area of the city, will be a partnership between the local authority and charity Sistema Scotland

The Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra is ‘facing possible extinction’ and announced a $5m (£3m) fund-raising campaign and a restructuring plan that will see redundancies for both musicians and administration staff.

The National Campaign for the Arts has released its 2013 Arts Index – ‘A measure of the vitality of Arts and Culture in England’. The index tracks changes in hope that policy makers can apply coherent bases to their decisions.

Simon Webb, who has been the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra’s director of orchestral management since 2008, will be joining the BBC Philharmonic as its new general manager in March 2014. He will be replacing Richard Wigley, who has held the post for ten years.

A ceremony at Goldsmiths' Hall in the City of London last night saw the announcement of the British Composer Awards presented by the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (Basca) in 13 categories.

In the four years since 2010/11, spending on ‘cultural and related services’ has been reduced by almost a quarter in real terms. Councils serving the most-deprived areas have borne the brunt of reductions in funding relative to spending.

Seven UK music teachers across the UK have received honours at the fifteenth annual Classic FM Music Teacher of the Year Awards. The presentations were made across three nights at the Music for Youth’s Schools Proms.

Music education hubs have done little to improve the range in quality of music education across England, says a report released by Ofsted today, urging hub leaders to act more as ‘champions, leaders and expert partners’.

Orchestras Live’s 7 November conference on ‘Taking Music Further’, held at Kings Place in London, brought much evidence of good practice to the attention of its 100-plus delegates, as well as a number of wakeup calls over barriers to access and outsiders’ perception of classical music.

Gergiev: ‘It is wrong to suggest that I have ever supported anti-gay legislation and in all my work I have upheld equal rights for all people. I am an artist and have for over three decades worked with tens of thousands of people in dozens of countries from all walks of life'

The Government’s decision to repeal current National Insurance regulations for self-employed musicians and entertainers has been welcomed by the Association of British Orchestras and the Musicians’ Union.

Arts Council England and DCMS funding in 2012/13 was distributed in the ratio 15:1 per head of population between London and the rest of the country, says report. ACE has committed to address the issue in its next funding round.

The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra has announced a new mobile app for Apple and Android smartphones which allows users to purchase tickets and earn points to contribute towards rewards when they buy tickets through the app.

The pianist joins 11 other messengers of peace and one goodwill ambassador, who advocate on behalf of the United Nations and its projects across the world. Lang Lang has been designated in connection with secretary-general Ban Ki-moon’s Global Education First project.

With a first prize of €20,000 and a diary of 34 engagements worth another €150,000, the winner of the 2015 Malko conducting competition will find the competition a transformative moment in his or her career.

BASCA has announced the 39-strong shortlist for its 2013 British Composer Awards, including nominations for George Benjamin's Written on Skin and Gerald Barry's The Importance of Being Earnest. The winners will be announced at Goldsmiths’ Hall on 3 December.

The 3rd Barbirolli International Oboe Festival and Competition will take place at the Erin Arts Centre, Isle of Man from 5-12 April 2014. The planned festival and competition in 2012 had been cancelled in 2011 due to ‘the loss of crucial grants’.

The culmination of JAM’s Writing for Music project, which has seen six composers and six poets working with six choirs in Oxford over the past year, will take place on 9 November with a concert at the University Church of St Mary, Oxford.

Both the Irish and Welsh arts sectors have been digesting news this week of funding cuts in 2014. The Arts Council of Wales is having its budget cut by 3%, while Ireland’s Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht has announced a 7% cut to the budget it receives from the exchequer

Some 60 record labels that vanished from the UK market with the collapse of distributor Codaex last June are back with the emergence of New Arts International, which has teamed up with distributor Proper Note.

The posts of head of music and deputy head of music at the Purcell School have been abolished in a restructuring of staff announced by the headmaster, David Thomas, and chair of governors, Sir Roger Jackling, just before the start of the autumn term.

BBC director general Tony Hall has made a commitment to the BBC's coverage of and support for the arts. ‘Arts programming sits right at the heart of the BBC and is a vital part of who we are ... but I want us to be much more ambitious.'

Three new pieces will be put to an audience ballot at the Bath Phil's season opener on 12 October, to decide which will be published by Schott. It is part of the Young Apollo festival, running throughout this weekend.

Composer James MacMillan has launched a brand new music festival for southern Scotland, with the aim of bringing together international artists and local community and schools groups. The Cumnock Tryst will take place in October 2014 in the East Ayrshire market town and former mining community of Cumnock, where MacMillan grew up and attended three local schools.

New York City Opera has announced it is to close and file for bankruptcy in its 70th anniversary year after failing to find the $7m (£4.3m) it needed to deliver its planned season for the year ahead. The company's ethos of making opera affordable to the city’s residents had earned it the nickname ‘The People’s Opera’.

‘I send my deepest thanks to everyone involved for what we have achieved together’ says a statement released by Vänskä’s management company. The conductor first threatened to resign in April this year during a still unresolved dispute over players' pay and conditions.

Scottish Opera has released a statement announcing that French conductor Emmanuel Joel-Hornak has withdrawn from the position of music director at the company, which he was due to have begun in August taking over from Francesco Corti.

The Metropolitan Opera’s season-opening production of Tchaikovsky’s Eugene Onegin on 23 September was disrupted briefly by a lone protester urging the house and its cast to take a public stand against Russia’s repression of homosexuals.

Following the success of last year’s Yamaha piano selection sessions initiative, the company will be running sessions at London's Southbank Centre on 11&12 October and at Liverpool’s St George’s Hall on 17&18 January 2014.

The third ABO/Rhinegold Awards will be presented at the ABO Conference dinner on Wednesday 29 January 2014. Nominations are now open for Orchestra Manager, Concert Hall Manager and Artist Manager of the year.

Regulations for teaching music are included in the new national curriculum for state primary and secondary schools in England, which was published on 11 September and comes into force in September 2014.

A new venue and new format for the Gramophone awards ceremony on 17 September has won general approval from the recording industry. However, some executives complained about the ceremony's move from the Dorchester Hotel to the less salubrious LSO St Luke's.

A new venue and new format for the Gramophone awards ceremony on 17 September has won general approval from the recording industry. However, some executives complained about the ceremony's move from the Dorchester Hotel to the less salubrious LSO St Luke's.

Sir John Eliot Gardiner is to be presented with the Critics’ Circle’s Outstanding Musician award for 2013, and awards for exceptional young talent have also been awarded to conductor Ryan Wigglesworth, countertenor Iestyn Davies and pianist Yevgeny Sudbin.

The first 11 graduates have been selected for the Arts Fundraising and Philanthropy Consortium’s new arts fundraising fellowship programme, which aims to ensure that the arts sector has the skills to 'get better at asking'.

Original plans for a treble soloist in Bernstein’s Chichester Psalms were abandoned due to legislation regulating performances by children, rules which the BBC described as 'completely outdated'. The countertenor was then called in from recording sessions as an emergency replacement.

Free to attend for those who register online, Music Education Expo 2014 will again feature more than 50 seminars, workshops and debates, 150 exhibitors showcasing their products and services, and countless networking opportunities.

The RFH’s 7,866-pipe organ has been unveiled, following a £2.3m restoration process funded by a £950,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant and the successful Pull Out All the Stops public fundraising campaign.

Debussy Doodle sees upsurge in recordings of Clair de lune, with entries at six and seven in the official classical singles chart. Select's Anthony Anderson said the upsurge was also felt by album sales, meaning 'consumers are therefore discovering lesser-known Debussy works'.

The magazine has announced winners in 11 categories before an awards ceremony in three weeks’ time at LSO St Luke’s in London. They also include Sir John Eliot Gardiner and the Monteverdi Choir, Sir Mark Elder and the Hallé, and a nod for the BBCSO for the second year running.

Operatic bass Richard Angas collapsed earlier this week during a rehearsal. 'Richard was a giant of the opera world in every possible way,' said Opera North director Richard Mantle, 'a performer of great character and charisma, generous hearted and an incredible friend to all who knew and worked with him.'

Orchestra will continue with its planned eight-concert 2013/14 season under music director Barry Wordsworth. It was on course to be disbanded, said organisers, and had been forced ‘to rely on an injection of cash to guarantee its survival’.

Proposals aimed at resolving the long-running feud within the Minnesota Orchestra by Senator George Mitchell, the American politician who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland, have been rejected by the orchestra’s board despite its musicians signalling their approval of them.

Private equity group Kohlberg & Co has dropped out of the bidding process for Steinway Musical Instruments, after it emerged that hedge fund manager John Paulson had made a higher offer for the grand piano maker

‘We’ve just hit £40,000,’ said general manager Judith Clark. ‘I’m very hopeful and very heartened by what has happened in the last 48 hours.' Earlier this week the orchestra stated that it would not be able to present its 2013/14 season, or meet certain committed payments, unless it could raise £70,000 in ten days.

A fourth man, named by the Guardian and Press Association as Malcolm Layfield, has been arrested over offences against three girls aged 16, 16 and 18, alleged to have taken place between 1980 and 1991, while the man was teaching at Chetham's.

‘Over the last couple of seasons there has been a reduction in the number of legacies received, making it difficult to make up the shortfall from ticket sales and current levels of sponsorship and donations,’ said a statement.

Alleged credit card fraud of more than £100,000 over a period of eight months went unnoticed by staff at Creative Scotland between December 2010 and July 2011. ‘We fully acknowledge weaknesses in our system at that time which led to the fraud going undetected,' said a statement.

Universal Music's international CEO, Max Hole, plans marketing push on classical catalogue as UK staff advise on US releases. Decca US has conducted research into what dog lovers and pets favoured beyond the obvious Bach and Hugo Wolf.

The Guildhall School of Music and Drama has unveiled Martin Creed’s Work No. 1637: FEELINGS in the foyer of its new facilities at Milton Court. The artist said in a statement: ‘I don’t know how I feel’.

Highlights of this year's seventh festival will include a re-imagining of Madame Butterfly by Michael Finissy, two new operas from Size Zero Opera and a contemporary refurbishment of Pergolesi's La serva padrona.

Alain Lanceron is to stay on as Warner Music Group manages its recent acquisition of EMI Classics and Virgin Classics. Universal had retained the brand rights as part of the sale but has no current plans to use them.

The childhood home of Ralph Vaughan Williams has been opened to the public by the National Trust for a trial season until 3 November. The house has not been restored and the NT is asking visitors to come ‘with an open mind’.

ACE chair Sir Peter Bazalgette gives vote of confidence to major organisations as Arts Council confirms it will make three-year commitment to next round of national portfolio organisations - even though ACE's own budget only goes to 2015/16.

‘The music is the key and the motivation is to make that one’s focus, trusting that the performances will be excellent anyway,' says director Jamie Walton. Audiences do not know which players will appear at any given concert.

An opera in an ice cream van, an international online choir and a site-specific birdsong project on a remote Scottish island are among the musical highlights of the Glasgow 2014 Cultural Programme, announced earlier this week. The eclectic and wide-ranging project, with a budget of £4m, will bring arts events to the whole of Scotland...

The semi-finalists of the 2013 interpretation and improvisation competitions of the St Albans International Organ Festival have been announced, with the semi final rounds taking place today and tomorrow. The final is on 19 July.

The label will initially release two albums per season, and will 'allow the AAM to take full control of its future recording catalogue, producing a range of recordings which match the artistic plans and development of the orchestra'.

The Department for Education today released details of the proposed new national curriculum from 2014. Following consultation it has added music technology and improvisation to what will be taught, with the musical canon remaining central to plans.

The Academy of Ancient Music (AAM) has announced details of a new partnership with The Guildhall School of Music & Drama to provide students with opportunities to prepare for a career in professional performing.

Campaign by undercroft users pushes Southbank Centre to try again 'to find the best way of balancing everyone's needs in demanding financial times so we can achieve this ambitious project'. The neighbouring National Theatre has also objected to the planning application.

Warner Music Group officially acquired the catalogues and recording activities of EMI and Virgin Classics on 1 July as part of its £487m acquisition of the Parlophone Label Group. However, Warner did not acquire the EMI and Virgin Classics brands as part of the deal.

US piano maker Steinway Musical Instruments has agreed to be bought by private equity group Kohlberg & Co in a $438m deal. Steinway’s board unanimously recommended the offer and expects to close the transaction later this year.

The Farthest Shore, a new work by Paul Mealor commissioned by JAM (John Armitage Memorial) which premiered on 28 May at the St Davids Cathedral Festival will be performed on 2 July at St Bride’s, Fleet Street and on 6 July at St Leonard’s, Hythe alongside James MacMillan’s Cantos Sagrados and Britten’s Rejoice in the Lamb.

Calling all musically-engaged writers and bloggers under the age of 30. We are looking for a new voice in music criticism. Submit a review of a live event of not more than 300 words, evoking the event, conveying your interest in the music performed and informing a wider audience of its significance.

The Musicians Benevolent Fund has appointed Graham Sheffield as its new chairman, and has adopted a new name: Help Musicians UK. The 92-year-old organisation won’t be dropping its old identity entirely, however, instead keeping it in the background as a reminder of its long history.

The Department for Culture, Media and Sport, led by culture secretary Maria Miller, is reported to have negotiated a cut of 8% for the period 2015/16, with a roughly 5% cut to be dealt to arts organisations and museums.

The Bramall Music Building at the University of Birmingham, the Colyer-Fergusson Building at the University of Kent and the new development in Manchester for Chetham’s School of Music are among the 43 UK recipients this year.

A new archive housing the world’s most comprehensive collection of Benjamin Britten’s work has opened in the grounds of the Red House, Aldeburgh, as part of a £4.7m redevelopment of the site. Dame Janet Baker will officially open the building today.

The Academy of Ancient Music will be resident ensemble at the National Gallery this summer, providing extensive accompaniment to the gallery’s exhibition Vermeer and Music: The Art of Love and Leisure.

Opera Holloway is running a week of workshops and rehearsals and performances in London, 30 July-3 August. The Gingerbread Project will see children aged 12-15 working alongside members of the Opera Holloway company in the lead up to two performances.

After a long search, Creative Scotland has announced the appointment of Janet Archer as its new chief executive. She will be leaving her current post as director of dance at Arts Council England to join the Scottish organisation on 1 July.

A closer look at exactly where public money is spent reveals that classical music organisations are much more reliant on grant funding than other sectors of the arts world. Seven of the ten organisations receiving the largest funding grants from the Arts Council were opera, ballet or classical music companies, and collectively they received nearly a quarter of all the money handed out in 2011/12.

Opera houses and concert halls have stuck to horseshoe and shoebox shapes respectively for centuries, but today's needs are dictating new shapes, says David Staples, principal of Theatre Projects Consultants.

A panel discussion differed over how much Spotify cannibalises other parts of the record industry, with claims that major labels received special revenue terms in exchange for buying stakes in Spotify.

The future of classical music lies not in taking it out of concert halls but bringing youth audiences into those venues, violinist and broadcaster Daniel Hope said in a wide-ranging and challenging keynote speech at the opening of the second Classical:NEXT industry forum.

Worcester International Festival for Young Singers (WIFYS) will see choirs from Belgium, Poland, Spain, the Czech Republic, Austria, Russia, Hong Kong, Germany, Lithuania and the UK giving concerts across the town and surrounding areas.

The 60th anniversary of the Queen’s coronation will be marked with a documentary about the 200 boy choristers who took part in the service which is ‘nothing more, nothing less, than the memories of those boy choristers.’

A new Venetian-themed production of Mozart’s Don Giovanni directed by Thomas Allen and a touring chamber version of Handel’s Rodelinda are among the highlights of Scottish Opera’s 2013/14 season, unveiled by general director Alex Reedijk on 21 May.

Delegate numbers are up 20% for the second outing of Classical:NEXT, the music congress that opens in Vienna on 29 May. More remarkably, the number of exhibitors is up 70% at nearly 130, selling out the exhibition area in the MAK (Museum of Applied and Contemporary Arts).

Lucy Powell, MP for Manchester Central, has become the first MP to publicly support calls for an inquiry. Widespread media coverage into the issue this week has included an in-depth report by Channel 4 News.

Six successful proposals stood out in latest HLF round ‘because of their strong focus on regeneration and importance to their local communities’. Aberdeen's Cowdray Hall is part of plans to redevelop the Aberdeen Art Gallery area awarded a £10m grant.

The Minnesota Orchestra has announced the cancellation of the remaining two weeks of its current season. The decision means that the 110-year-old orchestra will not have played a note of music in public during the whole of its 2012-13 season.

Britten has showing in both seasons, while ENO commissions new work by Julian Anderson. Both companies have made reference to fundraising in light of an increasingly difficult environment for public funding.

Four internationally-acclaimed musicians have accepted invitations to become artists in residence at Liverpool, following the announcement of the Royal Liverpool Philharmonic’s new concert season. Bryn Terfel, Andrew Manze, Christian Lindberg and Simon Trpčeski will perform not only with the orchestra but will also become involved in all other aspects of the Liverpool Philharmonic, including the burgeoning learning programme.

The National Centre for Early Music’s 2013 composers award has been won by Lilly Vadaneaux (aged 11) in the 18 years and under category, the youngest entry and youngest winner of the competition to date, and Joseph Howard (20) in the 19-25 years category.

Think Wagner, think Bayreuth. The 19th-century predecessors of the German Tourist Board did a fine job of pulling in the visitors to this home of Wagner opera. But now the city of Leipzig, 200km up the road, and city of Wagner’s birth, is making a sterling attempt to compete in the year of the 200th anniversary of the composer’s birth.

Selected commissions represent greater range of genres than precursor in 2012, with 20 projects including collaborations with dancers, film-makers, poets, artists and skateboarders as well as musicians.

Fergus Linehan has been announced as the Edinburgh International Festival’s director designate to become festival director and chief executive from October 2014. He will take up his post on a part-time basis from May this year to plan for his first festival in 2015.

Steve Lamacq and Tom Service unite for 6Music Prom in a concert featuring the London Sinfonietta and Laura Marling, while Urban Classic brings together the BBCSO and Laura Mvula, broadcast live on Radio 1 and 1Xtra.

Tributes pour in for great conductor, 'a man whose professional encounters were often as tempestuous as his private life'. The volume of tributes paid bears witness to his place in the genuine affections of many.

London 2012 Festival proved a catalyst for high-quality classical music as a number of events are nominated, and three big-hitting composers, Birtwistle, Anderson and Barry, go head-to-head in the large-scale work category. But there is no place for The Space, the BBC and Arts Council England's multi-platform arts service.

The proposed £12m refurbishment of Liverpool’s art deco Philharmonic Hall has moved a step closer following the submission of a detailed planning application and listed building consent to Liverpool City Council.

Brewer had been convicted of five counts of indecent assault while he was head of music at Chetham's School of Music in 1970s and '80s. His ex-wife, Kay Brewer, received a 21-month sentence for one count of sexual assault.

On 20 March 2013 the winners were announced for the first ever Music Teacher Awards for Excellence. The awards were created by Rhinegold Publishing and Music Teacher magazine to celebrate excellence in the UK’s music education sector

Britten’s War Requiem, Mahler’s Symphony No 8 and Messiaen’s Turangalîla-symphonie are among the musical monoliths that the Royal Scottish National Orchestra has announced for its ambitious 2013/14 season, its second with Peter Oundjian as music director.

Sainte-Chapelle, a commission for the choir's 40th anniversary, is the group's first single release in nearly 30 years. Eric Whitacre is the first living composer recorded by the group since John Tavener in 1984.

Conductor commits to orchestra until at least 2018 as 40th anniversary is announced, to include a Schumann symphony cycle, new works from Peter Maxwell Davies and Martin Suckling, and a Far East tour that takes in China and Japan.

Professional development and networking afternoon at the Royal Opera House will feature librettists, composers, performers and producers including Huw Watkins, David Harsent and John Fulljames, ROH associate director of opera.

Seven new productions will appear on the main stage, and the Linbury theatre is established as dedicated home for 'new or very recent work'. At the press conference, Sir Antonio Pappano ticked off the press for its reaction to casting changes in 2012's Robert le Diable.

Beethoven in space, Berg in the Deep South jazz clubs and Dido meets Bluebeard are just some of quirky delights on offer at this year’s Edinburgh International Festival. Unveiling a line-up that is not as theme-focused as in previous years, festival director Jonathan Mills said the 2013 festival will instead explore how technology has shifted artists’ perceptions of the world.

Decision is cruel, joyless and ideological, says Samuel West, chair of National Campaign for the Arts, as council members cite 'tough choices'. Streetwise Opera and ENO's community choir, both set up to work with vulnerable people, will see a current funding stream cut.

The British Council, which five years ago had scrapped its arts funding and reinstated it after government intervention, is increasing its arts investment by £14m over two years.

The announcement came as BC chairman Sir Vernon Ellis unveiled Mark Wallinger’s The White Horse, commissioned by the artist at a cost of £100,000. Ellis said the increased investment underlined that ‘the arts are at the heart of the British Council and define who we are as seen from overseas’.

The Southbank Centre has announced a major renovation and new building project, aimed at rationalising the areas around the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Purcell Room and Hayward Gallery and creating a large rehearsal space. A new foyer will connect the spaces of the Festival Wing, and the 'glass box' rehearsal space will form a dramatic addition to the South Bank skyline.

Students at Lancaster University are holding an emergency meeting today (Tuesday, March 5) to discuss the future of music and other arts subjects on campus. It follows a decision by university management to end the study of single and combined honours music. There will be no new intake in September this year.

The awards will be held at a gala dinner on 20 March hosted by Classic FM presenter Margherita Taylor, as part of the inaugural Music Education Expo which is held at London’s Barbican Centre on 20 and 21 March.

Executive director Leslie East has been appointed to succeed Perricone as chief executive and Lincoln Abbotts, who joined the ABRSM last year as teaching and learning development director, is to take up the newly created post of director of strategic development.

Van Cliburn, the American pianist, has died aged 78. He was awarded the US’s National Medal of Arts in 2010 and the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2003, and was one of the world’s best-known performers of classical music.

Petition organiser says music schools and colleges 'should not have anything to hide' and so should support the petition's calls for an inquiry into 'sexual and other abuse at Chetham’s School of Music and other specialist music institutions'.

Music Theatre Wales has announced a year-long season of work to mark its 25th anniversary, including two UK premieres. In 2014 the company will give the world premiere performance of Philip Glass's The Trial, in a co-production with the Royal Opera House and Houston Grand Opera.

The first week of iTunes' Essentials:Classical campaign has been hailed by recording companies as a dramatic success not only in converting classical collectors to downloaders but also in opening up new markets.

A ruling from European competition regulators has resulted in the richest archive of British classical music being sold to Warner Music Group of the US.
The £487m that Russian-born, London-resident industrialist and WMG owner Leonard Blavatnik paid for Parlophone will be a welcome addition to Universal’s coffers but the deal may not be good news for classical consumers.

Cardiff City Council is proposing to end its subsidy of music lessons in schools by cutting its £151,000 grant to the Cardiff County and Vale of Glamorgan Music Service. Meanwhile, neighbouring Gwent is facing similar cutbacks, with Newport City Council proposing to withdraw its funding for Gwent Music Support Service.

Sir Peter Maxwell Davies visited the Purcell School in January to work with some of the school's composers and performers before the school's concert at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London, on 11 March, where Sir Peter will be guest of honour.

Sound and Music has relaunched two initiatives for the promotion and support of composers: the George Butterworth Prize of £1,500, and the Francis Chagrin Awards, which will provide composers with financial support to help meet costs associated with composing and disseminating new work.

Sir Simon Rattle's announcement that he will leave in 2018 has provoked a storm of rumour and gossip, not least that he is leaving thanks to 'growing strains' in his relationship with the orchestra ‒ reported by news organisations from Santiago to Sydney. The orchestra has moved to correct factual inaccuracies in some reports.

After seven years presenting Radio 3’s weekly choral programme The Choir, presenter Aled Jones, who moved to ITV’s Daybreak sofa last year, has left the programme. The presenter gap left by Jones’ departure is being filled this month and next by six distinguished luminaries of the choral world, each of whom will present a special one-off programme that focuses on their particular choral interests.

Corporate takeover firm Hilco has taken control of HMV by paying £40m for its debt ‒ providing some hope that at least some of its high street presence will remain. But most classical sales had already moved online.

Awards go to Britten Sinfonia's David Butcher, Orchestra Manager of the Year; Artist Manager of the Year James Brown of Hazard Chase; and Concert Hall Manager of the Year Kevin Appleby of Turner Sims in Southampton. The Royal Philharmonic Society was given the ABO Award.

The Munich Philharmonic Orchestra has formally announced the appointment of Valery Gergiev as its principal conductor from 2015 ‒ while his current employer, the LSO, talks up the strength of its relationships with previous chief conductors.

LSO: 'We cannot comment on any other plans which Valery Gergiev may have. What is clear is that his relationship with the LSO is strong and it will sustain.' Gergiev is expected to become chief conductor of the Munich Philharmonic from 2015.

The second ABO/Rhinegold Awards will be presented by violinist Nicola Benedetti at the ABO Conference dinner on 23 January, in the categories Orchestra Manager of the Year; Concert Hall Manager of the Year; and Artist Manager of the Year. CM will announce the details online after the ceremony.

Sir Antonio Pappano was presented with the award at a small ceremony in the Royal Opera House’s Conservatory room yesterday. The Incorporated Society of Musicians (ISM) established the award in 1976 with the stated aim ‘to recognise outstanding contributions to musical life in the UK’.

The Southbank Centre has announced its classical season for 2013/14, with highlights including Antonio Pappano’s Orchestra and Chorus of the Academy of Santa Cecilia, the first UK performance of Claudio Abbado’s Orchestra Mozart and the return of the Festival Hall’s newly refurbished organ

English National Opera's accounts for 2011-12 show a £1.2m fall in ticket sales set against a £1.4m increase in cash spent on productions and a drop in its Arts Council grant. The results 'reflect the cut in ACE funding in 2012 and the impact of a very difficult economic environment on ticket sales', says the company.

Rumours that the National Campaign for the Arts is closing have been firmly denied by its new chairman ‒ but the organisation will change, said the actor and director Sam West who has written to subscribing members to set the record straight.

The Royal Opera House has announced its plans for new opera until 2020, building to a series of four full-scale new commissions inspired by questions developed with philosopher Slavoj Žižek, and including new projects with the Guildhall School of Music and Drama, Aldeburgh Music, Music Theatre Wales, Opera North and Sound and Music.

Welcome to the new Classical Music website, and thank you for visiting. We hope you find the changes we have made useful, helpful and easy to navigate, but we thought some key directions in the early stages wouldn’t go amiss.

Sir Simon, who took over from Claudio Abbado as principal conductor of the orchestra in 1999, has announced that he will not be renewing his current contract, and the 2017/18 season will be his last in Berlin.

In a new year honours list dominated by sporting personalities, a number of figures from the classical music world were also recognised, including CBEs for Ruth Mackenzie, director of the Cultural Olympiad, for services to the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, and Michael Berman, chairman of the Southbank Sinfonia, for services to music and philanthropy.

Venu Dhupa, Creative Scotland’s director of creative development, has resigned from the body just weeks after chief executive Andrew Dixon also gave notice of his departure. The body has come under sustained criticism in recent months over new funding arrangements, management style and its corporate ethos.

As 2012 draws to a close, green shoots may be appearing for Creative Scotland. But the Year of Creative Scotland was just that, as its chief executive prepares to depart in the new year following his recent resignation

The arts are to take a further funding cut because the Department of Culture, Media and Sport and Arts Council England have been so pared down themselves that they say they are unable to sustain the new reductions announced in chancellor George Osborne's Autumn Statement.

Ravi Shankar, the sitar player and composer described by George Harrison as ‘the godfather of world music’, has died at the age of 92. He was a three-time Grammy award winner and collaborated with Philip Glass and, extensively, with Yehudi Menuhin

The Ulster Orchestra has entered into a consultation process with staff and stakeholders that interim chief executive Ed Smith says may lead to ‘some losses to the core orchestra and administrative staff’.

A spokesperson for Lancaster University said: 'This course has experienced significant decline in undergraduate applications in recent years and has reached a point that is unsustainable in terms of undergraduate activity.'

Creative Scotland is looking for a new chief executive following the resignation of Andrew Dixon. Over the past year the arts quango has attracted intense criticism from the arts community prompting the board to initiate two internal reports which were completed prior to Mr Dixon’s resignation.

Culture secretary Maria Miller has written a strongly-worded article for the Evening Standard on 28 November in which she responded to comments by Sir Nicholas Hytner, Danny Boyle, Stephen Fry and Stephen Daldry during the Standard Theatre Awards on 25 November.

The Southbank Centre has announced programme highlights for ‘The Rest Is Noise: the Soundtrack of the 20th century’, a yearlong cultural festival inspired by New Yorker music critic Alex Ross’ multi-award-winning book.

An international research project has been awarded a grant to examine the impact of Liverpool’s In Harmony project on the community. The Institute of Cultural Capital, a joint venture between the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University, received the grant from the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

English National Opera has contracted brand and sponsorship agency Capitalize to develop its corporate partnerships and sponsorship opportunities ‒ with naming rights to the London Coliseum, ENO’s home since 1968, potentially available to the right bidder.

Musicians in the Orchestra of Scottish Opera have set up Scotland’s first music co-operative following the restructuring of the company last year which resulted in all of its players going on to part-time contracts.

The Royal Opera House is closing its commissioning and contemporary music and dance arm, ROH2, as part of an internal reorganisation. However, commissioning and producing new work is to continue, with productions continuing to be staged in the Clore Studio and the Linbury Theatre, now firmly associated with contemporary work and new commissions. In a gradual process, works commissioned by ROH2 which have not yet been produced will still appear under the ROH2 banner.

Following the publication of a highly critical open letter sent to Sound and Music and Arts Council England from 255 composers, performers and other music industry figures, a second open letter will be sent today, signed by 90 young composers ‘actively engaged in contemporary music in the United Kingdom’.

Recent comments

Cheryl Frances-Hoad: When will sexism stop tainting my profession?I have to say I found this article slightly odd. I attend concerts regularly and am nearly always pleasantly surprised to see how many female orchestral players there are in our symphony orchestras and other musical groups. I agree there are many fewer female composers and conductors than males ones, but surely you wouldn't suggest "positive discrimination"? Peter HodgsonPeter Hodgson - Mar 22, 12:49 PM

Philip Borg-Wheeler: Why is Sibelius still a foreign language to so many?Glad to see you are still flying the flag for the unsurpassable Paavo, Philip. I totally agree about Rattle, Davis and others. Nowadays Vanska leads the field with some wonderful work being done here in Cardiff by Danish conductor Thomas Sondergard (a great admirerer of Berglund) and the BBC National Orchestra of Wales. I have always liked Ashkenazy in Sibelius too. Of Berglund's three cycles, I still rate his BSO versions above them all. Those readers curious about Berglund should aceess a Fiinnish-made documentary filmed in Helsinki and Bournemouth - it's worth watching for the BSO rehearsal sequences alone, even if you cannot understand the commentary. Martin FurberMartin Furber - Mar 17, 11:20 AM

Geoffrey Baker: 'We need ethically and pedagogically sound music education, not music education in any form'Tricia Tunstall It seems that Mr. Baker and I are at an impasse regarding “authentic scholarship.” His insults to my book include the accusation that it “lacks any discernible grounding in scholarship.” I have never claimed to have written a scholarly work. My book was an honest report on my experiences encountering El Sistema in Venezuela and in the U.S. I have great respect for scholarly work. Changing Lives is reportage, not scholarship. Mr. Baker says his book is scholarship because it includes a host of interviews and citations. However, most of his interviewees remain anonymous, making the research entirely unverifiable. (In my unscholarly book, I do attributes every quote by name.) Further, his citations are all in support of his views; there is no acknowledgment that in fact there are many people, scholarly and otherwise, who hold views opposing his. For these reasons, I cannot consider his work a model of scholarly endeavor. Regarding Mr. Baker’s assertion that my portrayal of Maestro Abreu constitutes hagiography: how seriously can this be taken, from someone who has called Abreu “the Fuhrer”? And as for his plucking out the three words “in any form” in my sentence in support of music education,...Tricia Tunstall - Jan 24, 8:59 PM

Tricia Tunstall: Geoffrey Baker's El Sistema denunciation has the feel of a vendettaTricia Tunstall Geoff Baker has chosen to attack me from a personal angle, beginning with his first, intentionally insulting sentence. I am compelled, therefore, to address his misrepresentations. To be clear: I have never once been paid by El Sistema. And I was a successful independent writer and music educator for three decades before discovering and becoming an enthusiast about El Sistema five years ago. As for “hitching” my career: Are we to understand that Baker’s crusade against El Sistema has nothing to do with building his own career? Further, I have never claimed that I am a scholar or that my books are scholarly. However, I have had a number of years of graduate study in musicology and music education, and I have great respect for the scrupulous attribution-based research and deliberate moderation of tone that characterize fine academic scholarship. I do not see these qualities in great evidence in Baker’s book. On the grounds that Maestro Abreu’s grandparents were Italian immigrants, Baker scorns my claim that Abreu and the eleven other Sistema founders were “native Venezuelans.” I believe that quite a large percentage of Americans, both North and South, would be surprised to hear that having immigrant grandparents...Tricia Tunstall - Dec 16, 5:26 PM